Sticking It Out by Carol Park

One summer day Marjorie discovered all she touched started to stick. 

She navigated past dirty plates from yesterday’s lunch and dinner stacked on the floor, and considered syrupy plates, a griddle and mixing bowl on the counter. 

I just can’t do this. Not yet, she thought. First, a treat.

She opened the refrigerator filled with a raw chicken, scads of Tupperware of various sizes and a plethora of bottles. She pushed them aside to find a half-way-consumed, giant-size Hershey’s Chocolate bar and unfolded its shiny wrapper. The semi-sweet square tasted delicious, but the shiny wrapper remained on her fingers. Though she shook her hand over the trash, it clung. No matter how hard she pulled, it stayed.

Her teenage son sat past the door frame, playing video games. “Bacon!” she called.

Bacon didn’t rouse, so she shuffled to him, her hips brushing the door frame. Their Persian cat nestled at his feet. She held out her hand. “Take it off!” 

He tried. The silvery film tore and wouldn’t let go of her fingers.

At first it was only the right hand that adhered. Then, as the day went on, her whole arm picked up lint, cat hair and paper scraps and couldn’t be scraped off. One handedly, she pushed aside piles of magazines, found her phone and texted with her left-hand, “Ajax, come home!”

Her husband came, leaving a customer’s door half-hung. She pointed at the clumps of cat hairs stuck to her forearm and wailed. “They won’t come off! What is this?”

He stared pointedly at stacks of empty yogurt cartons and floral teapots on their small kitchen table. “It’s what happens when you become so attached to all manner of things!”

He brought out an array of cleaners—Simple Green, X14, but even his namesake couldn’t dissolve the bonds. “How about a spiritualist?” Ajax suggested. 

She went along and he opened the car door for her.  He shouted, “Don’t touch it! I’ll Let me do it!” and swung the seatbelt and buckled her in.

While walking to the office door, she bent to smell a rose. The petal stuck to her nose. “It’s spreading!”

After Ajax did the knocking, the religious magician admitted them and heard their story. He waved his hands and chanted. Still the rose petal, rabbit fur, scraps and wrapper remained.

“There’s something more serious underneath this sticky issue. Some spirit is trying to get your attention.”

Marjorie shook her head. “I can’t listen.”

After driving home, Ajax made a doctor appointment for the morrow. As Ajax drove her there, Marjorie sweated in the heat since bed linens now clung from her chin to her knees. 

The doctor searched his database. No description quite matched Marjorie’s dysfunction. The one most like was a man forced to sleep with a beam on his back. The M.D. asked her to keep him informed, so he could record accurate data. “I want a unique topic – your case will further scientific exploration!” 

Then he saw she wasn’t grinning. “If you become desperate, I’ll refer a surgeon who can cut off the skin and get rid of this stuff.”

She shrieked, “I’d rather keep it all then!”

Back at home, her husband kept his distance. “What if we hugged and could never part? Bonded forever.” Terrible, he thought. “Besides, someone has to bring home the video games and Farmer John Bacon.” 

When her armchair at home would not release her thighs, Marjorie grew more alarmed. “How do I get to the toilet?” 

Ajax said, “Well, since I’m a contractor, I’ve got a tool that will lever you out!” He pried and pried while she cried. When a toilet trip was needed, more trying assistance. Ajax or Bacon would say, “It’s curious that your skin never sticks to the toilet seat.”

When Marjorie stopped complaining, Bacon paused his games and read her fairy tales. “How can I find that magic?” she’d say.

One day Marjorie admitted, “Before this started, I did want to sit around and do nothing.” Her brows tightened. “Now I have it.” Tears trickled, then spilled down her chin. Ajax handed her a tissue, but it fluffed her lips.  “Maybe, just maybe, tomorrow I’ll be ready for a drastic solution.”

Ajax lifted his bushy eyebrows. “What is it?”

“Call that priest. He said something about Someone trying to get my attention. Ask him, what should I do to come unstuck? I just might listen.”

Ajax could barely nod in reply. Divorce was sounding better and better, but could she survive?

Carol Park explores geographies, including the SF Bay Area, wilderness, and Asian mazes. Her fiction has appeared in The East Bay Review, The Harpoon Review, Birdland Journal, Shark Reef and Antarctica Journal. The anthologies Irrational Fear and Fault Zone: Strike Shift include her stories. Her MFA comes from Seattle Pacific.